Stored energy had a way of leaking, no matter what was done to stop it. That was another aspect of the all-embracing, irresistible second law of ther… - Isaac Asimov

"But it was Paradise in one way," said Steiner at last. "How?" "All the time we were there the woman did not speak."

Earthmen may even rule at Trantor for a generation, but their children will become Trantorians, and in their turn will look down upon the remnant on Earth.

It is by the Imperial Capital that contemporaries (and posterity, too) judge an Empire, and its magnificence impresses them mightily and leads them to judge the Emperor a great man and hero, even though it may all be based on robbery, and though the provinces of the Empire may be sunk in misery.